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Mark and I are brainstorming some things that we saw while abroad. Obviously, I didn't need to travel thousands of miles to know that Baltimore and London are very different cities with very different challenges. But based on your experiences, and the dispatches that Mark and I have posted on this blog, what do you think our cities can learn from each other?
Justin Fenton has covered crime for the Baltimore Sun for five years, in suburban counties and Baltimore City. His award-winning work has included coverage of the Amish schoolhouse slayings in Lancaster, Penn.; a 16-year-old boy who executed his parents and two brothers in their sleep; a three-part series about the odyssey of a female serial con artist; and a small town’s crippling baseball stadium deal with a hometown athlete.
Mark Hughes is the crime correspondent for The Independent newspaper in Britain, a national daily based in London. He has covered the goings on at Scotland Yard, and further afield, since 2008. Previous to that he was the paper’s north of England reporter, working from Manchester. He joined The Independent in 2007 after three years working on a regional newspaper in Carlisle. 
A roundup of crimes reported in Baltimore City and Baltimore County
Comments
To me, the number one difference between Baltimore and London and a number of other thriving cities is access to safe and reliable transportation. Say what you will about the Tube and it's numerous service outages, it beats the Baltimore Busses any day. Even if someone wants to work hard and make a future for themselves, they can't get to the jobs. In cities like London, Boston, and New York, they can. Given the choice between getting up at 4 to take two or three busses out to the 'burbs for work, who wouldn't just give up?
Posted by: Bmore Careful | November 14, 2009 12:08 AM
I'd like to know how cities like Liverpool and Manchester (which are really better objects of comparison than London) manage to have so little crime and yet have so many of the same socio-economic challenges that places like Baltimore, Philladelphia and Detroit have. Is it the lack of guns? Is there a cultural factor? is it better policing? I'd like an open and honest discussion about this.
Posted by: Rich | November 16, 2009 1:03 PM
To say that "cities like Liverpool and Manchester... manage to have so little crime and yet have so many of the same socio-economic challenges that places like Baltimore, Philladelphia [sic] and Detroit have" is to be unrealistic in assessing the real points of difference.
The United Kingdom does NOT have the same "socio-economic challenges" that American cities do; note the access to public health care systems, the national subsidization of higher education (indeed education in general), and the stark differences in criminal enterprise - comparisons in these respects are moot and reveal a major discrepancy in social welfare - and that solves Rich's conundrum...
Posted by: Paul | November 21, 2009 10:19 AM